When I came back she was mixing gin, vermouth and orange bitters in a quart shaker, not leaving a lot of space for them to move around in.
'Did you see anything?' she asked.
I sneered at her in a friendly way. We carried the cocktails into the dining room and played bottoms-up while the meal cooked. The drinks cheered her a lot. By the time we sat down to the food she had almost forgotten her fright. She wasn't a very good cook, but we ate as if she were.
We put a couple of gin-gingerales in on top the dinner.
She decided she wanted to go places and do things. No lousy little runt could keep her cooped up, because she had been as square with him as anybody could be until he got nasty over nothing, and if he didn't like what she did he could go climb trees or jump in lakes, and we'd go out to the Silver Arrow where she had meant to take me, because she had promised Reno she'd show up at his party, and by God she would, and anybody who thought she wouldn't was crazy as a pet cuckoo, and what did I think of that?
'Who's Reno?' I asked while she tied herself tighter in the apron by pulling the strings the wrong way.
'Reno Starkey. You'll like him. He's a right guy. I promised him I'd show at his celebration and that's just what I'll do.'
'What's he celebrating?'
'What the hell's the matter with this lousy apron? He was sprung this afternoon.'
'Turn around and I'll unwind you. What was he in for? Stand still.'
'Blowing a safe six or seven months ago--Turlock's, the jeweler. Reno, Put Collings, Blackie Whalen, Hank O'Marra, and a little lame guy called Step-and-a-Half. They had plenty of cover--Lew Yard--but the jewelers' association dicks tied the job to them last week. So Noonan had to go through the motions. It doesn't mean anything. They got out on bail at five o'clock this afternoon, and that's the last anybody will ever hear about it. Reno's used to it. He was already out on bail for three other capers. Suppose you mix another little drink while I'm inserting myself in the dress.'
The Silver Arrow was half-way between Personville and Mock Lake.
'It's not a bad dump,' Dinah told me as her little Marmon carried us toward it. 'Polly De Voto is a good scout and anything she sells you is good, except maybe the Bourbon. That always tastes a little bit like it had been drained off a corpse. You'll like her. You can get away with anything out here so long as you don't get noisy. She won't stand far noise. There it is. See the red and blue lights through the trees?'
We rode out of the woods into full view of the roadhouse, a very electric-lighted imitation castle set close to the road.
'What do you mean she won't stand for noise?' I asked, listening to the chorus of pistols singing Bang-bang- bang.
'Something up,' the girl muttered, stopping the car.
Two men dragging a woman between them ran out of the roadhouse's front door, ran away into the darkness. A man sprinted out a side door, away. The guns sang on. I didn't see any flashes.
Another man broke out and vanished around the back.
A man leaned far out a front second-story window, a black gun in his hand.
Dinah blew her breath out sharply.
From a hedge by the road, a flash of orange pointed briefly up at the man in the window. His gun flashed downward. He leaned farther out. No second flash came from the hedge.
The man in the window put a leg over the sill, bent, hung by his hands, dropped.
Our car jerked forward. Dinah's lower lip was between her teeth.
The man who had dropped from the window was gathering himself up on hands and knees.
Dinah put her face in front of mine and screamed:
'Reno!'
The man jumped up, his face to us. He made the road in three leaps, as we got to him.
Dinah had the little Marmon wide open before Reno's feet were on the running board beside me. I wrapped my arms around him, and damned near dislocated them holding him on. He made it as tough as he could for me by leaning out to try for a shot at the guns that were tossing lead all around us.
Then it was all over. We were out of range, sight and sound of the Silver Arrow, speeding away from Personville.
Reno turned around and did his own holding on. I took my arms in and found that all the joints still worked. Dinah was busy with the car.
Reno said:
'Thanks, kid. I needed pulling out.'
'That's all right,' she told him. 'So that's the kind of parties you throw?'
'We had guests that wasn't invited. You know the Tanner Road?'
'Yes.'
'Take it. It'll put us over to Mountain Boulevard, and we can get back to town that-a-way.'
The girl nodded, slowed up a little, and asked:
'Who were the uninvited guests?'
